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Pokemon Black & White and the failure of imagination

We've been putting a lot of time into Pokemon Black and White. One of the best new(ish) features of the game is that now it is easier than ever to play online. All of the online bits from before are bundled in the new games almost to the point of inundation. Not all of the online functionality is up and running yet but there's still lots to do with the Global trade service the doesn't really work GTS negotiate, random WFC battle match-ups and the Wi-Fi battle subway. Problem is that most players seem to be lacking in imagination and if you spend the slightest bit of time online you'll end up seeing a lot of the same pokemon over and over again. For example, expect to battle endless Hydregion and Volcarono.Not only does this make the game very boring but now that there's more pokemon than ever it would be nice to see some teams that were mixing it up a bit. Yeah sure, picking the pokemon with better than average base stats lets you win easier but we could all be pricks and use the same four. That wouldn't be boring at all.

Having spent some time with the community, unfortunately IRL too, I know they aren't a very imaginative lot so here's some top team suggestions to make online play a little bit more interesting for everyone.

TEAM NAME: BattletoadsSuggested Members: Seismitoad, Toxicroak, Politoed and possibly one of the earlier evolutions holding eviolite.Flavour text: You were probably too young to remember battle toads. It was tough.

TEAM NAME: Street FightersSuggested Members:Throh or Sawk depending on which kind of boring and generic Ken/Ryu you like best. E-hariyama, Mazanggief and Himonsim.Flavour text: Fuck. Psychic Ruuuuuuuuuuuuuun!

TEAM NAME: Flower Power/ They're all the same and rubbishSuggested Members: All those pathetic grass types. Grass and poison optional if you want to mix it up a bit.Flavour text: You can call me flower if you want to! Slightly reworking the same old sprites since Gen 2! Green (and yellow and red) and mean!

TEAM NAME: Toon SquadSuggested Members Possibly chatot bit too much of a stretch? Grumpig? A pikachu with speed ev'd?Flavour text: That's All Folks!

That's all we've got time for folks but don't forget the heroes in a half shell either. And please for the love of god try to make life a little bit more exciting. We can all level up Hydregion don't cha know?

The problem is the people playing competitively over wifi are knowledgeable enough to build a competitive team (thanks primarily to Smogon making their analyses freely available) but too stubborn to use a simulator because they think skipping the tedium of breeding for optimal stats is cheating.

As such they're also too stubborn to accept a hard-fought loss - it's all about the k/d so they pull the plug rather than admit defeat.

Meet Omastar, the (Oma) star of Omastar Comics and of twitter fame. You could say Omastar is my favourite Pokémon but you'd be wrong. My favourite Pokémon is Dactylocer, MY Omastar. let me explain.
One of the wonderful and often overlooked features of the Pokémon series of games, including the main series of games and some of the spin offs, has been the ability to transfer Pokémon not just from one game to the next but most importantly from one generation to the next. This feature goes as far back as Pokémon Ruby and Pokémon Sapphire. Pokémon were transferable from one game to the other in the Green, Blue, Red and Yellow games and these games were compatible with the Nintendo 64 Pokémon Stadium, and Pokémon Stadium 2 but sadly the Pokémon caught in these games couldn't be transferred beyond that. Since 2002's Ruby and Sapphire games it's been possible to transfer pocket monsters from one game to another up until the latest generation Pokémon Black Version 2 and Pokémo…